Cass Elliot was born Ellen Naomi Cohen on September 19, 1941, in
Baltimore, Maryland. She grew up in the Washington D.C. environs and in
her senior year of high school, performed in a summer stock production
of "The Boyfriend" at the Owings Mills Playhouse, where she played the
French nurse who sings "It's Nicer, Much Nicer in Nice." After this
experience, even though her family anticipated her seeking a college
education in pursuit of a career, Cass forged ahead in the performing
arts. She made a splash in New York and began an acting career,
competing with Barbra Streisand for the
Miss Marmelstein part in "I Can Get It for You Wholesale" in 1962.
She toured in a production of
Meredith Willson's "The Music Man."
Elliot also produced a play at Cafe La Mama in New York. However, by
early 1963 she had met up with
Tim Rose and John Brown and formed a
folk trio initially dubbed The Triumvirate, but later known as The Big
3 when Brown was replaced by James Hendricks. The Big 3 were a
progressive and innovative folk trio who recorded two albums and made
appearances on
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962),
Hootenanny (1963) and
The Danny Kaye Show (1963).
In 1964 the group had begun to fall apart and it metamorphosized into a
foursome called "Cass Elliot and The Big Three" which included
Canadians Denny Doherty and
Zal Yanovsky (Rose had left at this point).
Soon this foursome became The Mugwumps who operated out of The Shadows
nightclub in Washington. They released a single for Warner Brothers and
stayed together through the end of 1964, until they, too, began to
disintegrate. Cass began to work as a solo single in Washington, D.C.
At this point Doherty had joined
John Phillips and
Michelle Phillips and the
three were performing as The New Journeymen. Soon they left for the
Virgin Islands, where Cass subsequently joined them, and the four began
to sing together in mid-1965--thus, the superstar group The Mamas and
The Papas was born. From 1965 to 1968 the Mamas and Papas recorded a
series of top-ten hits including "Monday, Monday," "California
Dreamin'," "I Saw Her Again," and "Dedicated to the One I Love."
The group's last hit was a launching number for Cass Elliot. "Dream A
Little Dream Of Me" became her theme song and, beginning in 1968, she
embarked on her own short-lived but solid solo career. Her distinct
voice had always emerged from the groups in which she sang. In 1969 she
scored big with "It's Getting Better" and 1970 yielded the hits "Make
Your Own Kind of Music" and "New World Coming." In 1970, Elliot also
appeared in the film Pufnstuf (1970) and
recorded an album with rock singer
Dave Mason. Recently, the issue of
the soundtrack of Monte Walsh (1970)
turned up four different versions of her theme song, "The Good Times
Are Coming", composed by John Barry
and Hal David.
Elliot had two prime-time television specials of her own in 1969 and
1973, but most people remember her scores of television appearances
throughout the early 1970s with
Mike Douglas,
Julie Andrews,
Andy Williams,
Johnny Cash,
Red Skelton,
Ed Sullivan,
Tom Jones,
Carol Burnett and others. She guest-hosted
"The Tonight Show", had successful stints in Las Vegas and continued to
record for RCA during these years, too. Cass had one daughter, Owen
Vanessa, in April 1967 and she was married twice, first (1963-68) to
fellow Big Three and Mugwumps member Jim Hendricks and second to Baron
Donald von Wiedenman (1971). In 1974, she traveled to London where she
had a two-week engagement at the London Palladium. After performing to
sellout crowds and basking in repeated ovations, Cass tragically
succumbed to a heart attack on July 29, 1974 in London, following this
successful concert tour (and NOT, as is commonly believed, from choking
on a sandwich).
In 1998, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Cass Elliot and her
fellow band-mates from The Mamas and The Papas into that institution.
Her daughter Owen represented her mother and accepted her award.
